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"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague." -Cicero

The Obama administration and its controversial Department of Homeland
Security are under fire for sending what is being described as a
“chilling” message to U.S. Border Patrol agents demanding “obedience,” Liberty News Network (LNN) national correspondent and law-enforcement advocate Andy Ramirez revealed in an exclusive video report
(see below) calling for Congress to investigate. The word “obedience”
was defined on the official TV screens as: “quickly and cheerfully
carrying out the direction of those who are responsible for me.”

Reliable sources inside the agency confirmed to Ramirez, who also serves as president of the Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council
(LEOAC), that the controversial message demanding “obedience” was
displayed for agents on TV monitors in the San Diego and Tucson sectors
last week. In his explosive video for LNN exposing the scheme, Ramirez
also provided a picture of the “propaganda” graphic that he obtained
from a source within Customs and Border Protection (CBP) who requested
anonymity (see photo above).

“This ‘Obedience’ order just
continues a long recent history of intimidation going back to the 2004
‘gag order’ by then-Chief David Aguilar,” Ramirez told The New American in
an interview, referring to a controversial non-disclosure agreement
purporting to bar agents from releasing important information to
lawmakers and the media. “The primary point of this all is to purge the
patrol of experienced agents who refuse to go along to get along.”

Calling
for congressional hearings to investigate the controversial “obedience”
message, Ramirez said the scheme was frightening. “Cheerfully?!” he
exclaimed about the graphic, sounding bewildered. “Responses I’m hearing
from sources at the Border Patrol include the words Orwellian, creepy,
sickening, craziness, Nazi handbook — and those are just the ones I can
actually repeat.”

Ramirez also wondered what happens to Border
Patrol agents who do not “cheerfully” engage in “obedience” upon demand,
especially if orders included instructions to violate the Constitution,
for example. “Do they go to one of the long-rumored FEMA camps guarded by employees and DHS armored personnel carriers?”
he asked. “Perhaps we hear loudspeakers playing ‘Deutschland,
Deutschland Uber Alles’ — something out of Hitler’s Nazi Germany?”

Alternatively,
Ramirez speculated half-seriously, there could be an even more chilling
fate awaiting those who refuse to carry out unlawful or
unconstitutional orders. “Are they now classified as domestic
terrorists, in which case a yet-to-be-identified official at the
Department of Justice can have them taken out with a drone strike?” he
wondered. “As we just heard in recent congressional hearings, that’s
pretty much what can now happen; a drone strike on an individual who is considered a terrorist on U.S. soil.”

According
to Ramirez, both the Border Patrol and Customs have already engaged in a
number of “purges” where agents close to retirement were forced to
retire even though they still had room for advancement. “They want
employees who are loyal to DHS and CBP, which is why the old BP logos
and decals have been pretty much removed off the vehicles,” the LNN
correspondent told The New American in an exclusive interview.

“Agencies
like CBP, ICE, TSA, and the like were placed under DHS' roof for
command and control purposes,” Ramirez continued. “However the real
purpose has been to keep the facts from reaching the public. In point of
fact, DHS is a propaganda ministry in its own right, given the blatant
misinformation released by top officials. In the wrong hands it could
easily act in a way similar to ‘State Security’.”

In addition to
exposing the controversial image used to condition Border Patrol agents
into blind obedience, Ramirez took the opportunity to blast the agency’s
leadership as well. “As the Border Patrol enters its 89th year since it
was established, there is no figure who has done more to destroy this
honorable agency than David Aguilar and his handpicked cronies, including current national Chief Mike Fisher,” he said.

The
longtime advocate for Border Patrol agents, who has testified before
Congress on multiple occasions, also noted that management was
destroying morale. Among other concerns, Ramirez pointed to pay
increases for top leadership amid sequester even as agents face
potentially massive pay cuts. He blasted what he said was top officials’
efforts to prevent agents from enforcing U.S. immigration laws, too.

Indeed,
the Mexican government seems to be rapidly expanding its influence on
the American side of the border. Ramirez slammed what he described as
the U.S. federal government ceding control over the border to the
Mexican military, drug cartels, and human smugglers. Notoriously corrupt
authorities from Mexico now have “virtual oversight impunity” at U.S.
Border Patrol facilities, he explained.

“It’s no wonder morale has been broken at the Border Patrol,” Ramirez concluded.

The New American
reached out to the Department of Homeland Security with a number of
questions about the “obedience” scandal. Who approved this? Is it from
DHS, CBP, or some other agency? Are such messages being used in other
DHS components? How does DHS respond to criticism from Ramirez and
agents about this message? Does DHS consider this type of messaging to
be appropriate? Are there any exceptions to "obedience"? What happens if
agents do not “quickly and cheerfully" carry out "the direction of
those who are responsible” for them?

While most of the questions
were left unanswered, Bill Brooks with the CBP Office of Public Affairs
offered a brief statement about the issue. “Information Display System
slides are meant to communicate important and useful information to
personnel,” Brooks told The New American in an e-mail. “This example falls short of that criteria, and has already been removed.”

For
Ramirez, however, though he was glad to hear that the offensive slides
have already been removed, the official “non-denial” response was not
enough. “Well apparently CBP has responded to the Obedience slide, but
refused to comment on who ordered it, and the other facts I reported for
LNN,” he said. “Clearly they're not denying it.”

Still, even
though the slide is supposedly gone, Congress needs to get involved and
provide real oversight of DHS, Ramirez explained. The other alternative
is to continue allowing the “out-of-control bureaucracy” to run
roughshod over their employees, the rights of Americans, and
constitutional principles. For Ramirez, doing nothing should not even be
an option.

“Congress needs to publicly investigate this ‘Obedience’ slide as well as the DHS purchase of over 1 billion rounds of ammo, FEMA camps, and armored personnel carriers,
for there are many serious implications involved here,” Ramirez
concluded, calling on officials to make a public apology to agents.
“Also, the officials responsible for this blatant attempt to intimidate
our Border Patrol agents must be terminated with the same loss of
benefits as employees who get terminated on trumped up charges I've
documented over the past eight years.”Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at
anewman@thenewamerican.com.